Grey water: A threat to ponds

In recent times schemes like saat nishchay and other such panchayati raj schemes focusing on sanitation in rural areas are being done on a huge scale and have also been successfully able to reduce the problems related to uncleanliness in these areas. But the removal of waste from households is only half the work done. The bigger task is the proper disposal of that waste. And that’s where these schemes are lacking, in most of the cases the proper construction of these drainage channels are taken good care of. And probably that’s the only thing that’s cared about, not about where this waste is going to be disposed of. The waste in this case is mostly disposed of in a water body nearby. The condition of water bodies in our cities is already very poor, but thankfully rural areas’ water bodies were cleaner, but these drainage channels are now damaging the long protected healthy ponds and canals of our villages too. Grey water from the households have a quite considerable amount of minerals coming from soaps, detergents etc, which  favours aquatic weed infestation, and can lead to eutrophication in the long run which can further deteriorate the already grim water scarcity conditions that we’re facing.

Once I was sitting at a friend’s office who heads a scheme in a block, when suddenly a mukhiya came requesting him about the construction of remaining few feets of drainage channel in his panchayat so that  the drain from the whole panchayat could then be drained collectively in the government pond nearby. When asked about the adverse effect this would have on that pond, he replied with how common this practice was and how this is being done in almost every other panchayat nearby.

The situation had already become so dismal that the difference between the healthy ponds and the ponds in which grey water is drained can be clearly seen from satellite images.

One possible solution of this problem is construction of one pond like structure particularly for disposal of grey water, which can at least help save our healthy rural water bodies.